Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in London today to boost his image as an international statesman and persuade French expatriates in London to elect him president and to return to France.

The centre-right interior minister, keen to temper his image as a populist hard-man and appeal to workers on the left, will lunch with Tony Blair, whom he has praised for "an ability to rally the left while seducing part of the right".

Mr Sarkozy's choice of London for his first foreign trip since launching his presidential campaign is seen as deeply symbolic. He is keen to present an image of himself as an international statesman, a friend of Mr Blair and close to the US-British alliance.

However, on a trip to Washington last year his declaration that he was proud to be a "friend of America" received a hostile response back home and he has restated his long-held opposition to the war in Iraq. But he is also desperate for new allies in the EU and his intentions to shake up France's sclerotic economy has led him to favour aspects of the "Anglo-Saxon" model, which many in France dread.

This afternoon he will tour a London job centre in a clear show of support for the British economic system, notably its looser labour market and ability to create 2.5m jobs in 10 years, while France is battling with high unemployment. "He is keen to see what he can learn from a British job centre," his spokeswoman said.

After a visit to Churchill's cabinet war rooms, Mr Sarkozy will then address 2,000 French expatriates at a rally in central London. He has often spoken of the need to lure back to France the hundreds of thousands of highly qualified graduates who have moved to Britain, fleeing unemployment and a sluggish economy. But his courting of the London diaspora is part of a concerted effort by his ruling centre-right party to woo the 800,000 potential voters outside France who could swing a close-run second round.

Between 200,000 and 300,000 French people live in Britain and around 60,000 have registered to vote in the spring presidential election. With an average age of 29, most are part of a brain drain from France's universities and many work in the City. "France is in the process of becoming a country of emigration," Thierry Mariani of Mr Sarkozy's UMP party has warned.

Mr Sarkozy is also keen to win back the youth vote that is currently tipped towards his socialist rival Ségolène Royal, who has focused on internet campaigning.

Laurence Azzéna-Gougeon of the UMP London branch, who organised the rally, said those invited included restaurant workers, City financiers and students and were mostly young. She said it would be a "popular, not VIP" meeting, adding: "The young are interested in change, so they are very interested in Nicolas Sarkozy."

The visit has thrown the spotlight on the close relationship between Mr Sarkozy and Mr Blair. The two men speak regularly and in recent years have had a series of both official and unofficial meetings, including while on holiday in Florence and during Mr Sarkozy's trip to London to celebrate his reconciliation with his wife Cecilia.

Mr Sarkozy has taken advice from Mr Blair on policy and the euro but also on how to run his campaign, prompting the media to question how far his spin and media offensive is modelled on the New Labour machine. Some commentators have even wondered whether Mr Blair has inspired a new trend in France of politicians being photographed in their swimming trunks.

Although Mr Sarkozy has made speeches saying the French must learn English, he has struggled with the language himself, failing to get a qualification from one of Paris's elite post-graduate colleges because his marks in English were too low. Mr Blair speaks to him in French, using the familiar "tu" form of address.

Catherine Nay, author of a new biography of Mr Sarkozy, told the Guardian: "Among all the European leaders, he likes and admires Mr Blair a lot. When Cherie Blair comes to Paris she has dinner at Mr Sarkozy's interior ministry. The two men see each other on their holidays and for lunch."

The disco-dancing candidate

In his youth, he played air guitar to the "French Elvis", Johnny Hallyday. But the once square Nicolas Sarkozy has reinvented himself as a moon-walking, jive-talking disco fiend courtesy of a popular website, discosarko.com The site, which was launched in December, has attracted about 4,000 hits a day as people click on options such as KC and the Sunshine Band's Shake Your Booty to laugh as a computer-generated Sarkozy delivers a performance somewhere between John Travolta and Mr Bean.

But the mocking site is in fact part of an effort by Mr Sarkozy's marketeers to make him seem in touch with the times. It is also a tool for collecting the contact details of potential supporters.

Arnaud Dassier, whose company manages part of Mr Sarkozy's cyber campaign, said the candidate himself gave the green light for his disco alter ego, after asking his wife Cecilia what she thought of it.

A spokeswoman from Mr Sarkozy's office said although the site was run by young "sarkonautes" who supported the candidate, it was "not at all being run by Mr Sarkozy's campaign headquarters".